Yes, deadly force is deadly force. If deadly force is justified, it doesn’t matter if the force used is a firearm, robotic bomb, or a lock in a sock.

That is well settled law.

What is not well settled, is what in this particular situation justified the use of deadly force.

Yes, he deserved it. That’s for the courts and jury to settle, not for the incident commander who gets tired of waiting for the guy to give up, and says, “Fuck it, send in the bomb!”

The perp in this case was almost certainly guilty. He was also long past being an active threat, and was holed up in a corner of concrete walls in a parking garage. The decision to send in the robot bomb was born of impatience: the DPD simply decided to kill him.

I thank God that I never had to use deadly force in my career. I don’t understand celebrating deadly force as revenge without judicial process.

"The decision to send in the robot bomb was born of impatience: the DPD simply decided to kill him.

I thank God that I never had to use deadly force in my career. I don’t understand celebrating deadly force as revenge without judicial process. "

This ^^

They executed him with a robot. No trial, no lawyer, no rule of law.

Do you really want to go there?

nick

For extra credit, imagine that EVERY potential criminal feels there is no reason to surrender or cooperate, 'cuz he's just gonna get executed by the cops... sounds like a recipe for a lot more dead cops to me.

I'd like to add, what about that oath to uphold the law and the Constitution? Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, by a jury of his peers. He's not an active threat, you kill him, it's an execution.

Imho this is really a no brainer. The man had already demonstrated the desire, and ability to kill peace officers. Should we then further put said peace officers at risk trying to apprehend the guy? There are things that people do that lead them to forfeit their right to life. This man had crossed that border. If he had come out with his hands up and surrendered, great, bring him to justice via the court systems. This man chose differently, and barricaded himself in a manner that would put more lives at risk.

His decisions killed him, not the police. They were simply the tool he chose for his suicide.

I disagree that he was no longer a credible threat. Based on what we know at this time, he was still quite willing to pull the trigger. We'll never know if he might have laid down that rifle, but the chances he would have decided it was time to go out in a blaze of glory seem quite high, high enough to continue a 'shoot to kill' operational stance. He obviously had proven ability and willingness to shoot to kill. Every death is a tragedy, but I can't fault them for choosing the lesser of the tragedies.

If more info comes out I reserve the right to adjust my stance, but as the record sits now, good 'shoot'.

Thank you for the article it was very good. I feel sorry for those officers for what they had to go through, what they had to do and the fact that it took this long to clear them.

And for those who are saying it was an execution did he not state that he had planted explosives and that he had some on him? For all the LEOs knew he was holding the detonating device and could have killed other people without using his rifle.

I could not understand at the time why such a fuss was made about the type of lethal force used, dead is dead and it was accomplished without the loss of any more innocent lives. It was a horrible situation that he created and I feel no sympathy for him whatsoever.

I'm willing to ignore the potential Constitutional Crisis on this one, guy had it coming and it wasn't worth putting any more decent folks in harms way if Johnny5 and some semtex could manage the same ending.

SUBCHAPTER E. LAW ENFORCEMENT(c) A peace officer is justified in using deadly force against another when and to the degree the peace officer reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary to make an arrest, or to prevent escape after arrest, if the use of force would have been justified under Subsection (a) and:(1) the actor reasonably believes the conduct for which arrest is authorized included the use or attempted use of deadly force; or(2) the actor reasonably believes there is a substantial risk that the person to be arrested will cause death or serious bodily injury to the actor or another if the arrest is delayed.

So, God Bless Texas law! in this case.

OTOH, I thought the article was written a little breathlessly, focusing on those big brawny muscular cops. The only thing the authoress left out were multiple pictures of them working out in a gym wearing tight shorts and no shirts.